Everything MetaCDN related can be found at our special Magento Imagine landing page, metacdn.com/imagine

James Broberg and Cameron Lowe from MetaCDN are already on the ground in Las Vegas preparing for the big show. If you want to talk about Web Performance, Content Delivery Networks or Magento Optimization come and find us! We will be available at the following locations:

Come and say hello to us in Booth #68B at the Imagine Marketplace during Marketplace hours from Monday – Wednesday. Visitors can get a free Web Performance Report on their Magento powered website just by visiting us!

Imagine is the premier eCommerce event, bringing together more than 1,700 merchants, partners, developers, digital industry experts and open source enthusiasts, from over 35 countries, for three days of networking, collaboration, cutting-edge sessions and, of course, imagination!

Just when you were sick of Manchester United winning all the time, they’ve now taken home the trophy for the fastest Premier League website.We tested the performance of all 20 official Premier League club websites and have ranked them in order of the average global speed (in seconds). Run your own speed test using the free MetaCDN speed checker.

Here’s how the official club websites performed

Note: US (ec) and US (wc) refer to East and West coasts of the United States.

Note: Each speed test took into account that many club URL’s lead directly to a splash page requiring an initial click to enter the actual website.

Why Manchester United care about web performance

Manchester United’s official site is published in seven languages and over the last 12 months has attracted an average of more than 62 million page views per month – that’s 10 million more per month than Mashable. Boasting a worldwide following of 659 million fans, Manchester United understand the demand for their brand and have matched their on field success with online performance, gaining the title of fastest EPL website with a global average of 2.1 seconds load time.

In 2012 a Manchester United survey revealed that they have 325 million fans within Asia alone, and with so much demand its no wonder they’ve clocked up the fastest load time for the Asian region out of any premier league team.

Arsenal neglect Asian fan base?

No not exactly. Arsenal’s website would have finished in the top four had it sorted out its performance issues in Asia. The 62.3 second load time killed their average global speed score but it doesn’t show the whole picture. Arsenal have a separate URL for their Chinese fans (http://arsenal.qq.com/) which utilizes the QQ platform. But their QQ website is still lagging behind with an average speed of 22 seconds for the Asian region.

Arsenal have opened training schools in China, are sponsored by an Asian Airline and regularly tour Asia to promote their brand. so it is surprising both gunner websites showed such poor test results within the region. Although their worldwide appeal is far less than Manchester United and Liverpool, Asia makes up for about 15 percent of all visitors to the Arsenal site.

Is it all about selling shirts?

According to this news source, ’Manchester United and Liverpool sell more official replica football shirts, for Nike and Adidas respectively, than any other teams in the English Premier League’. Born from necessity, perhaps it is the large volume of global merchandise sales that are the driving force behind both club’s need for superior website performance worldwide, gifting Liverpool and Manchester United the top two positions in the table.

Tottenham are EU Champions

And lastly the Tottenham Hotspur fans will be happy to see the team finally joining the European Champions with the fastest recorded load speed of 1.5 seconds for the EU. A quick search on the Alexa traffic stats website reveals that the club has a significant following in Norway. Go figure.

Need to speed up your website?

Need help speeding your website l like some of the teams above? Signup for the MetaCDN website acclerator and turbo charge your business free for 28 days.